Day 6
Blake
So far today is kicking yesterday's butt. Yesterday seemed to be pretty discouraging for the both of us and to be honest, if it hadn't been for our friends and the people who comment on the blog we would have come very close to calling it quits. I'm really glad we didn't, because today has been great.
Last night, wife and I had dinner with some friends. We ended playing a really intense dancing game on the Wii which put me in a really good spot to crash and burn as soon as my head hit the pillow at home. This made for an awesome nap which left me in a good position to make it through the rest of the night.
This was the first night staying awake in my own house. It proved to present several problems I hadn't accounted for. Unlike myself, my wife is a respectable citizen and sleeps at night. We live in a really small apartment, so turning on any light or playing any sort of music is likely to end in me making a nocturnal pest out of myself. Also, as I was in the comfort of my own abode, I didn't force myself into a state of full dress. This compounded into me feeling bored by not being able to do much and feeling comfortably dressed for a long sleep. A bad combo in the wee hours of the morning.
To be honest, I didn't really do much for the first few hours of the night. I just kind of sat there and played with the cats. This lasted for far too long before I finally got myself off the couch and began figuring things out. I rigged up an ingenius blanket device that allowed me to run the lights at full blaze while not disturbing the other house resident. I also changed into normal folk clothes. This made feel as if I should be doing things. All of these things tricked my body into being active and normal.
I spent the rest of the night doing some much needed cleaning and reading a book about Space Marines, which did nothing to improve me as a person, but did a lot to improve my knowledge of fictional awesome things. Tonight I'll be able to go in with a better game plan and have something useful planned for my time. I'm finally getting to the point where I feel like I could actually do something productive with my nights and I'm really excited about it.
Other than that, my body is starting fall asleep really quickly for my naps and I'm waking up more rested. I think my internal clock is starting to get the hang of the sleep cycle. I really hope that's the case. Hopefully the rest of my days go as well as this one. Thanks for helping us out when things got rough!
Caitlin
I am happy to report that things took another 180° turn. My headache went away at around 10pm last night. I still spent a while contemplating whether I wanted to continue or not. Scout was actually the one who was pushing for it, and I'm really glad that she did. We made a deal that I would continue on if I felt awake and alert after my midnight nap and that I could play on my computer next to her in bed while she slept.
I started to look into some audial sleep aids. Those cheesy sleepy sounds, or some of those hypnotic talks suggesting you go to sleep. So I dropped a couple bucks an iPhone app called Deep Sleep with Andrew Johnson; it had some pretty good reviews. I tried it out first for my midnight nap. I started it 15 minutes early, so I could get relaxed in that time, to ideally fall asleep at the beginning of my nap time. It did a really good job of relaxing me, focusing me on thoughts about sleep and not other things. I'm not really sure if I fell asleep or not, but I definitely felt awake and alert when I got up at 12:30. It must've done something, if only providing a really relaxing break. So I decided to continue on.
I stayed surprisingly awake and alert until I was ready for my 6am nap; I spent most of my time working on the upcoming update for TippJar. I'm glad that we are finally starting to be able to try to use the time for productive things. I'm even starting to enjoy this time; I can get stuff done without the rest of the world distracting me (other than my cats and maybe Blake).
I used the Deep Sleep track again at 6am. I might've fallen asleep, not really sure again. I woke up feeling mostly rested again. I played around for another hour or so, and snuck in an extra hour of some sleepy cuddles with the sig fig. Doing this probably ruined a little bit of my chances for sleeping during my other naps, but oh well.
Work was productive again, which is great. I really like this feeling of productivity that I've been getting. It's something that somehow disappeared while I was sleeping monophasically. It's probably something that could be fixed by sleeping better, learning my body's desired sleep time and stuff, but it's being fixed by this polyphasic sleep cycle, and that's great.
I tried Deep Sleep during my noon nap. It was hard to focus on it this time, because I could still hear stuff going on in the office. I guess I could invest in a nice pair of noise cancelling headphones, but I think one long continuous track of something perfect will work just fine. I ended up just turning on some sleepy Cat Power, and I think I managed to get a little bit of sleep with that. Perhaps I could find a really good classical music piece to sleep to.
I found some Placebo Sleep Tracks, meant for polynaps, which is mostly white noise at a specific polynap length with a little bit of wakeup sounds (I'm still using my phones alarm, too). I modified the 20 minute one to be around 30 minutes, so I can use that if the enviroment at work gets too noisy again.
But for my 6pm (I took this one at work today), it was fine. I ended up listening to Lullaby Renditions of Bjork by Rockabye Baby. It was pretty relaxing, but I don't think it's quite the sleepy sound I'm going for.
Anyone have some good ideas for some super sleepy music or similar sound tracks?
Asleep within 10 minutes, max.
I have to tell you I failed. I couldn't imagine being able to perform the release properly today without getting some serious rest. I put a note on my door not to wake me and crashed out. For 10 hours. I feel quite refreshed this afternoon.
Tonight I will guide the release, and tomorrow I will begin again. However, this time I'm going to pick something other than dymaxion, I haven't decided which yet.
Keep it up you guys!
Caitlin, I've been wondering about finding some of those sleep tracks as well, and will give that a try when I re-engage.
It only somewhat worked out like that, but at least the weekend took the mental brunt of things.
Please do keep us updated on what happens!
Glad to hear that it's getting better for you.
Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks - Brian Eno
Get earbuds like this. I've worn these on an airplane with a screaming baby nearby and not been able to hear it at all.
http://www.amazon.com/Shure-SE210-Sound-Isolating-Earphone/dp/B0013JT3XC/
I'm proud of you both!
I'll also add those earbuds to my list. I'm not in a huge rush to buy them, but it might be handy if I actually do stick with this for a while. Are those earbuds comfy?
Also: don't forget eye-masks, darkness really helps you go to sleep as well.
Rock on!
I mentioned the book "Why we nap" in my comment on day three. One of the articles in there looks into the question of what the best rhythm for polyphasic sleep is, and comes to the conclusion (with experiments to back it) that there is a natural circadian rhythm with a period length of four hours. This means that with your six hour cycle, you're off every second nap. If you notice you can't adapt in the long run (and it will take about four weeks to adapt), try napping every four hours.
y'all are way too cool for school. building a fort would be mucho fun and i bet the kitties would love it!
That's a very interesting point you bring up. I have a PDF of that book, but I haven't really made it through it yet. Those findings make me want to rethink the dymaxion schedule. (I probably should have read the book before picking one, hehe).